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Stephanie Loftin, right, and her client inside the Long Beach Courthouse minutes after a judge dismissed his lewd conduct case because it was discriminatory enforcement and prosecution. Photo: Courtesy of Reba Birmingham.

Rory Moroney. fought the Long Beach Police Department and won. The police arrested him for lewd conduct, but a judge on Friday dismissed the case and said the police discriminate against gay men in their lewd conduct sting operations.(Photo by Brittany Murray / SCNG)

LONG BEACH – A superior court judge Friday made scathing statements about the Long Beach Police Department’s treatment of gay men in the community, saying in a ruling over a lewd conduct case that the department is hostile and intentionally targets gay men, and that the prosecutor’s office portrays them as “sexual deviants and pedophiles.”

Case dismissed

In his ruling, Long Beach Superior Court Judge Halim Dhanidina dismissed the case against Rory Moroney, 50, of Long Beach, who was arrested Oct. 15, 2014, at Recreation Park and charged with one count of misdemeanor indecent exposure and one count of lewd conduct. If Moroney would have been convicted of indecent exposure, he would have been required to register as a sex offender for life.

“The LGBT population has been cut off from their spiritual roots and traditional churches. They’ve been rejected and not able to participate or attend regular church services because of their identity,” said Moore, who is gay and the former pastor at Christ Chapel of Long Beach, another LGBT friendly church in Long Beach.